Elephant Electrocution: APDCL Insulates Power Lines Across Assam’s Elephant Corridors

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Sept 23: Four factors contribute to elephant deaths in Assam: poisoning, poaching, train accidents, and electrocution. As many as 247 elephants died in the state in the past ten years due to these four reasons.

Among these four factors, electrocution claimed the highest number of 130 elephants' lives in the past ten years. Coming next to electrocution are train accidents that killed 62 elephants, poisoning claimed 32 and poachers killed 23 in the past decade in the state.

To put an end to the incidents of elephant deaths due to electrocution, APDCL (Assam Power Distribution Corporation Ltd) took up the matter seriously and took several measures, including the use of insulated cables in the elephant corridors. As of now, APDCL has insulated around 200 km of bare conductors in the elephant corridors.

According to APDCL sources, the corporation has insulated almost all vulnerable wildlife corridors demarcated by the Forest Department. It has spent around Rs 44 crore insulating the bare conductors. It insulated bare conductors in Kaziranga, Manas, Pobitora and Golaghat. It will insulate bare conductors in phases in the remaining locations of the state where elephants and other wild animals move around.

Despite the NF Railway's implementation of several measures, a recent train accident resulted in the death of an elephant. NF Railway took measures like real-time alerts, vibration detection, and preventive actions, such as train operators slowing down or stopping trains when they receive an alert, to prevent deadly animal strikes. NF Railway is alert, as hundreds of kilometres of its tracks in Assam are vulnerable to train-animal collisions.

An expert said, "For an elephant, a railway line is not necessarily a barrier in the way it is for humans. Tracks can cut across established movement routes between feeding areas, forest and water sources."

A forest official said, "Even as the people of Assam consider elephants sacred based on their religious beliefs, the state has a section that poisons elephants to death when they suffer giant losses to their crops due to elephant depredation. This situation makes the railways more cautious, as most accidents occur in the early morning hours in the state."

The forest official said, "Our programmes aimed at raising awareness to reduce man-elephant conflicts are ongoing. The government has increased the amount of compensation to the people affected by elephant attacks and depredation. The incidents of elephant deaths due to poaching are declining. Poachers kill elephants only for the ivory."             

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